Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball had a long relationship throughout her career and the two met early in the Broadway run of 'Once Upon a Mattress'.

“It was the second night of the show. I was more nervous knowing she was in the audience than I was opening night,” remembers Burnett. That night Ball told Burnett to give her a call if she ever needed anything, which led to Ball guest starring on Burnett’s CBS special "Carol Plus Two with Zero Mostel" a few years later.



Burnett returned the favor and appeared on Ball’s "The Lucy Show" multiple times, the two friends regularly appearing together in each other’s work.

Ball also sent Burnett flowers on her birthday every year with a note that read “Hey kid, Happy Birthday. Love, Lucy” — a tradition that continued until the day Ball died. “The morning of my birthday, I turned on the television and she had died. And I got flowers that afternoon. She died on my birthday,” Burnett says.

http://ew.com/tv/carol-burnett-best-roles/#the-lucy-show-1966

Lucy was Carols' idol.

Miss Burnett told the story of how she and Lucy were at a Chinese restaurant not too long after she started her own variety show when Miss Burnett confessed being uncomfortable at having to assert herself to her male staff. This led Lucy to recollect that she had always depended on Desi to do the heavy lifting re the nuts and bolts on her shows so she'd be free to concentrate on the performance itself but shortly after 'The Lucy Show' started (a couple of years after their divorce), Desi was OUT as the exec producer and it all fell on Lucy's shoulders. She said she got a script that she felt was subpar and realized she'd have to tell the writers herself what needed fixing rather than rely on Desi to do it and she felt a bit uncomfortable but then she just decided that there was no point dancing around it and mincing words but to just be direct and spell out what was wrong and what she expected them to do about it.

'And that's when they added the 's' to my last name!' Lucy concluded.
Miss Burnett said she couldn't stop laughing through the whole kung pao chicken meal!

Miss Burnett told the story of how she and Lucy were at a Chinese restaurant not too long after she started her own variety show when Miss Burnett confessed being uncomfortable at having to assert herself to her male staff. This led Lucy to recollect that she had always depended on Desi to do the heavy lifting re the nuts and bolts on her shows so she'd be free to concentrate on the performance itself but shortly after 'The Lucy Show' started (a couple of years after their divorce), Desi was OUT as the exec producer and it all fell on Lucy's shoulders. She said she got a script that she felt was subpar and realized she'd have to tell the writers herself what needed fixing rather than rely on Desi to do it and she felt a bit uncomfortable but then she just decided that there was no point dancing around it and mincing words but to just be direct and spell out what was wrong and what she expected them to do about it.

'And that's when they added the 's' to my last name!' Lucy concluded.
Miss Burnett said she couldn't stop laughing through the whole kung pao chicken meal!

God I love Lucy. She was so no-bulls## and down to earth. So glad she finally got so much fame; because up to I Love Lucy she struggled in B movies.